The invention relates generally to field emission devices.
Field emission devices are used in a number of different applications, including displays, e-beam lithography, chemical analysis and space propulsion. Wide use of field emission devices in these applications, particularly in displays, has been hampered by the complexity of processing field emitting materials and the consequent high cost of such applications. Conventional field emission devices have been fabricated from such field emitting materials as metals, crystalline semiconductors, thin film diamond (diamond-like-carbon), graphite and nanotubes.
Organic conductors and semiconductors have been examined extensively for application in logic circuitry, light emission, and light detection. The application of this class of organic materials has been largely ignored, however, for field emission because of difficulties inherent in processing the materials for this application.